I had that experience when I was 11 years old and it changed everything.

I was a naturally curious child. Some people – normally my mother – would have said I was ‘into everything’. I thought this was a good thing; often she did not.

I was always exploring, trying to find out how things worked, and always asking questions.

When I was growing up we had a family friend who was a self-made multi-millionaire. I found him fascinating and would always try to ask him lots of questions.

My mum didn’t think that this successful man would be interested in the questions of an 11-year-old so she often tried to limit my conversation with him. My mum was also from the ‘children should be seen and not heard’ school of manners. My much more progressive approach was the total opposite. I’d try anything to get to talk to him.

One day we went for a walk and I decided this was my opportunity.

He was very rich, I was 11 and not rich so I decided that asking him how he became rich might help me become rich too. It seemed entirely logical to me so I started asking my questions. My mum clearly thought my ‘So how come you’re so rich?’ approach was incredibly rude and told me to be quiet and stop asking questions.

His response was to tell her off for telling me off. It was a sweet moment for me, I can tell you. He went on to give me some of the best advice I’ve ever received.

He said: ‘Wendy if you want to know the answer, ask the question.’ and ‘if you want to be on the team say yes when they ask you to join.’

This simple and yet profound advice has stayed with me since then. His advice gave me the courage to ask questions and get involved in things I wouldn’t have dared to. This approach had worked for him and so I figured it might work for me.

This incredibly successful man had given me permission to take risks and to not fear failure.

A recent survey found that successful CEOs were ‘more likely to say yes than to say no.’ this seems obvious, doesn’t it?

If you want to make something happen – anything happen – you have to say yes. Because saying ‘yes’ opens a door for you in a way saying ‘no’ never will.

When I worked as an Event Director part of my role was to invite people to speak at our conferences. It was a privilege to do. Most people’s response was ‘yes, of course, I’d love to do that.’ Pretty much the only people who ever said ‘no thanks, I don’t think I can do that’ were women. Women seemed to see a hundred reasons why they couldn’t or shouldn’t take the opportunity while men seemed to see all the reasons they could and should.

One day I had to call someone I was just getting to know to ask them to speak so I started the conversation: ‘Hi Rachel. I‘m just calling to ask you to…’ before I’d finished my sentence Rachel said ‘yes, I’ll do it.’

My response was ‘but I haven’t actually told you what I’m asking you to do yet.’ Rachel’s response was ‘whatever you’re going to ask me to do I’m going to say yes to it.’ I’d never had someone say ‘yes’ before I’d even asked before.

Rachel’s approach was unique.

Her view is that women often say ‘no’ and rule themselves out before they even know what they are being asked. So Rachel’s approach is to say ‘yes’ and then find out more. And, if the opportunity isn’t right for her she’ll find someone who can do it better than she can.

In very different spheres my millionaire friend and Rachel with their say ‘yes’ approach have made a significant impact.

Wally’s company started with one lorry on a farm in East Anglia; it is now one of the largest haulage companies in the UK employing thousands of people. Rachel started her career as a youth worker on a Youth for Christ bus in East Anglia; she is a nationally recognised leader in Mission and Evangelism Adviser across the church in the UK.

It’s amazing where saying ‘yes’ can lead you.

Wally or Rachel didn’t know where saying yes would lead them but they were brave enough to try.

Are you a ‘yes’ person or a ‘no’ person?

Do you rule yourself in or rule yourself out?

Do you open the door or close it on yourself?

Maybe, we should all try saying yes more often.

This article was previously published in Liberti Magazine.

The post THE ART OF SAYING OF YES first appeared on Wendy Beech-Ward.

Later that day I went past a church and the sign outside said ‘The wages of sin is death.’ Unsurprisingly, I guess, I walked straight past.

These two signs got me thinking.

It’s amazing how much you can communicate in a few words.

These words really affected me. The coffee shop made me feel positive. The church sign had the opposite effect.

It made me wonder, what message is my life sending. And how can I make it a positive one.

The post SIGNS OF OUR LIVES first appeared on Wendy Beech-Ward.

I had coffee with a friend the other day and we were talking about his job. He was about to go on a leadership retreat and his team had contributed 360° input to this. I asked him what he thought they’d say about him. His response was that they’d say that ‘I am a visionary leader who always produces work of an excellent standard, that I have incredible energy and great communication skills. And that I am basically amazing at my job.’

If I’m honest I expected him to laugh after he made this statement and say ‘only joking!’  But he didn’t, he was totally serious. He, genuinely, thought his team would say all that about him.

Now this guy is a visionary leader, he is a great communicator and he is amazing at his job. I respect him immensely. What struck me about this conversation was the fact I don’t know one woman leader who if I asked her what her colleagues thought of her would say what he said.  And I know lots of women leaders.

Time and again I’m in conversation with women leaders who struggle they are called to lead, that the work they’re doing is significant and that they are actually good at it. They’d never talk about themselves like my friend did.

In fact, many of them go to the other extreme and talk about themselves and what they are doing in negative terms. Some actively seek to downplay what they’re doing as ‘just little old me doing my best.’ I know this to be true because I’ve done it myself.

So why do so many of us doubt ourselves so much and struggle to embrace who and what we’re called to be?

Rev Dr Kate Coleman explores this question in her fantastic book ‘7 Deadly Sins of Women in Leadership’.  Kate identifies that many women fall into behaviour she calls ‘Limiting Self Perception’.  Essentially we – sometimes – struggle to see ourselves as leaders and consequently undermine our own skills and influence. Some psychologists call this ‘imposter syndrome’. That despite evidence of our accomplishments we feel like frauds and put our achievements down to luck or the misjudgment of others. Ever felt like that yourself?

Just the other day a male leader asked me why one of his female team, who is extraordinarily gifted, lacks confidence. He was asking about someone who is nationally recognised in her role and has the respect of her peers and wider Christian community. I was glad that he cared enough about her to ask.

What I wanted to be able to say is I’ve got a machine that can fix that.  Bring her over all I need is 5 minutes and she can go on my ‘confidence machine’ and she’ll be all fixed: she’ll be more confident, more secure in her ability, more aware of her achievements, more able to embrace what she’s called to be and do.  How I wish I had a magical machine like that but sadly I don’t.

If you’re one of those women who doubt your own abilities, achievements and right to be in the role you’re in, unfortunately you’re in good company.  And I’d be tricking you if I said there was an easy two-step programme to become more confident. What I do know is that our confidence is often linked to our understanding of our identity in Christ.

I’m glad that when I became a Christian friends explained that being a follower of Jesus was about becoming a surrendered servant. They told me that all I was, all I had and all I was going to be were God’s and not mine. All I needed was to stay open-hearted and willing to be obedient. I’ve never been scared to admit that without Jesus I’m nothing.

For me knowing who I am has enabled me to approach life more confidently.  My friend Danielle Strickland often says ‘Jesus isn’t a crutch, for me he’s the whole stretcher.’  We all need to connect with the value God places on us, realising that we’re precious and daring to delight in what God is doing in us and through us.

I’m aware of my own brokenness but I know that I’m on a journey to wholeness. So I don’t let my past experiences hold me back.

Recognising how God sees us can revolutionise how we think and speak about ourselves.  It can stop us from talking ourselves down and also save us from talking ourselves up. When I’m part of something that goes well or succeeds, I take some encouragement for myself and my team, and then give the rest of the credit, where it belongs, back to God.

There is no trick to being confident but seeing ourselves as God sees us is a good place to start.

This article was first published in Liberti Magazine. 

The post THE QUESTION EVERY WOMAN LEADER ASKS first appeared on Wendy Beech-Ward.

In the death of Maya Angelou we lost so much.

We lost a woman who used her voice for speak for those without a voice. We lost a woman who was incredibly wise and yet spoke with simple clarity. We lost a woman who experienced pain and knew how to overcome it.

But more than all that we lost a woman who to the very core of her being epitomized courage.

Maya Angelou once said that ‘Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.’

Recently I’ve been struck about how important and necessary courage is. We don’t often talk about it but many people have to be courageous every day of their lives.

It takes courage to take a stand and speak out when others remain silent. It takes courage to encounter rejection and not become cynical. It takes courage to live selflessly when others are selfishly ambitious.  It takes courage to be treated badly and not seek revenge. It takes courage to go on when life has knocked you down.

But, the more I’ve thought about Maya Angelou, the more I’ve realised at the core of this amazing women was not only courage but also hope.

Maya experienced a world that was brutal and unjust. As a child she was subjected the most terrible experience – being raped by someone she should have been able to trust. Then watching that man be killed and believing it to be her fault she was mute for almost five years.

But despite this – and many other terrible experiences – through her writing, teaching, activism and art she showed us how to live life infused with hope. To live a life that believed for better.

Through her writing she spoke into being a world that was better than the one we often experience. She enabled us to dream for a better tomorrow than the world we experience today. Through her own example of fighting against the odds, she gave us the courage and hope that we too could overcome all that life throws at us.

So embrace hope and courage. And know to the very core of your being that they are the ‘fuel’ for a life well lived.

RIP Maya Angelou you taught us all so much.

The post A TRIBUTE: COURAGEOUS TO THE CORE first appeared on Wendy Beech-Ward.

The words hung in the air. They hung there refusing to go away.

My friend, Lauren, had been through a tough time and had felt that some of her friends who should have been there for her hadn’t. It was difficult to know what to say to make life better.

What do you say to someone who is really hurting, who has been badly let down and feels isolated and alone? When someone utters the words ‘I don’t know who my real friends are’ they are letting you into a deep part of their soul.

Lauren’s words that day have refused to leave me. They almost haunt me. They haunt me because they make me wonder what being a ‘real friend’ means.

Lauren’s pain was real.

Lauren’s pain wasn’t going away.

Lauren’s pain became my pain as I struggled to it make sense of it.

I think Lauren had a right to expect her friends to ‘show up’ for her. After all, isn’t that what friends do?

Lauren hadn’t wanted much from them. All she needed was for them to reach out to her. To call or text and say comforting words like ‘sorry life is tough.’  When this didn’t happen she was left bewildered.

As I thought about Lauren I realised that her friends did really care even if they didn’t show it. Lauren’s friends are good people who would be upset if they knew how much they’d hurt her. Its just that they are all living a ‘too tired, too busy, too late’ kind of life. Always rushing. Always playing catch up. Always struggling to juggle life.

A lot of people I know live like that – too tired, too busy and too late.

Showing up takes time that many of us don’t have. It also takes effort and many of us are worn out. It takes thought and we’re juggling too much already. Given all that, it is easy to see why some of us don’t ‘show up’ that often.

But we need to show up – not just for our friends but also for ourselves. When our lives become so busy that we can’t reach out to a friend in need – we need to stop and reconsider our priorities because our lives are clearly out of synch.

The thing that really saddened me about Lauren’s situation was that this was happening inside the church. Now I don’t think Christians have a monopoly on goodness – I’ve been around too long to think that. But I do think Christians should be good at friendship. And too often we’re not.

Lauren wasn’t asking for much. All she needed was people to show they cared. That shouldn’t be too much to ask of anyone you call a friend. If friendship doesn’t include simple care like that – then it isn’t worth much.

Most of us will start this week already playing ‘catch up’. Our To Do lists are too long, our inbox’s are too full and if you’re anything like me you’re wondering if you’ll get everything done.

So knowing that, why not take some time to do something that will make you feel good at the start of your week?

Reach out to a friend send a text, send a card, buy them a coffee – do anything that shows that you care. It’ll make their day, and probably yours too.

The post I DON’T KNOW WHO MY REAL FRIENDS ARE first appeared on Wendy Beech-Ward.

I love being a woman, I always have.  Ever since I was a small child, I’ve loved the fact that I’m female.  I was fortunate to be born into a family that celebrated women and believed that women could do anything.  This was just as well because early in my childhood my mum discovered that she was going to have to do just that – anything and everything.

My mum is one of my heroes.  She’s a straight talking East Londoner who calls a ‘spade a spade’.  She’s comfortable with having an opinion, finding the right words to express herself and is comfortable if you don’t agree with her.  It wasn’t until I was much older that I realised how amazingly freeing this ‘life lesson’ was. I’ve found that knowing that you have the right to an opinion is a powerful tool to yield in life.

When I was growing up, as much as I loved being a girl, I also loved doing things that were usually associated with being a boy.  Most of my childhood, I could be found climbing trees, making dens, playing on building sites and riding motorbikes.  In fact, for quite a few years every Sunday I’d spend my day at a motocross track racing around it trying to win.  Another amazing ‘life lesson’ I didn’t know I was learning. On that track I found out that being a girl didn’t matter if you good at riding a motorbike. Winning wasn’t about gender it was about skill.

These life lessons framed my childhood – they spoke loudly and clearly into my young soul.  They defined much of what I’ve become as an adult and as a leader who also happens to be female.  I grew up believing in equality, justice and freedom.  I believed in them because every day I experienced and lived in the fullness of each of them.

And just in case after reading all that you think I had an idyllic childhood I, like many of you, only knew what idyllic meant because we read books about the ‘Famous Five’.   My mum went back to work when I was about 4 months old, she always had to work full-time which meant that I often came home to an empty house, my parents separated when I was 9 which wasn’t at all commonplace when I was a kid and, then, when I was 16 years old three members of my immediate family, including my dad, died of cancer in the space of just six months.  Life was far from idyllic. But I became the person I am because of my circumstances not in spite of them.

I totally believe that the most powerful words you hear are the words you say to yourself.  Growing up the words I said to myself were incredibly powerful and very simple. My constant internal monologue was: ‘Be good, be kind, try your best. You can do it Beechy.’  I cheered myself on with these words while throwing myself at life at full speed (often on a motorbike).

The late, great Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, used to say: ‘To succeed you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality.’  I love Anita Roddick but, contrary to popular opinion, she didn’t start the Body Shop to build a global brand and change the world while doing it.  Her aspirations were much more meaningful than that: she started the Body Shop so she could feed her children while her husband was trekking across the Americas.

The trouble with quotes like this is that we use them to define what success looks like – especially if we hold some leadership responsibility which clearly we all do because we’re women and that’s what us women do!  So if doing something like starting the Body Shop feels beyond your reach right now celebrate every success you have in life no matter how big or small you think it is.

After all, when Anita Roddick, one of the UK’s most successful business entrepreneurs ever, started  out she thought that being a success was about making enough money to ‘put food on the table.’  And if that was good enough place for her to start, it’s probably good enough for us too.

This article was first published in Liberti Magazine.

The post BE GOOD, BE KIND, TRY YOUR BEST first appeared on Wendy Beech-Ward.

For many ‘having it all’ means effortlessly juggling work, family, friends and a social life perfectly while feeling equally fulfilled in every role.  Maybe you can get close to ‘having it all’ if you’ve got a job where you get paid the earth for doing not much and can actually pay other people to clean your house, run your errands, do your shopping – AKA run your life for you.  But for the rest of us who get paid regular money for increasingly longer hours I think ‘having it all’ is, probably, fast becoming a long lost dream.
While reading all the articles around this debate I read a fascinating quote from Amy Walburn: ‘It is our responsibility as educated career women to understand more comprehensively what the quest to “have it all” really means. It means that we need to fight for women’s equality everywhere.’ Oh wow!  Now that puts a whole new perspective on what ‘having it all’ means.  That quote has challenged me to the core and made me ask myself the question: ‘if I’m wanting to have it all – how and where am I fighting to ensure that others get it (all) too?’ I’m an ethical shopper.

The fact that I refuse to buy from certain shops draws a wry smile from some of my friends and complaints from my daughters.  But I refuse to give my money to corporations who don’t take their corporate responsibility seriously and won’t bow to consumer pressure to change their work practices. And continue to exploit women and children who have no voice to complain. I’m often asked by younger women leaders how I make my life work.

My answer is pretty much always the same: decide what’s important to you, be prepared to compromise (none of us ever gets everything we want), do the best you can, be determined to make life work for you instead you for it.  And, really importantly, realize that you’re making up your own story so there aren’t less right or wrong answers than you think.

Following these recent discussions I’ll be adding to that list.  When the next person asks me, I’ll add that making life work for you must also include making life work for others who don’t yet have the privileges we take for granted.  Unfortunately, women aren’t equal in many spheres of life in the UK – the fact that so few women are in politics, in the boardroom or represented in culture is an outrage. However, the fact that basic human rights are not even a dream let alone a reality for  hundreds of thousands of women across the globe is actual a travesty.

Women are routinely exploited, tortured, denied their rights and persecuted just because of their gender in many places throughout the world.  I was utterly outraged when I heard that Saudi Arabia has only just bowed to pressure and allowed women to compete in the Olympics.  Currently they only have two female competitors who both live outside Saudi and apparently have no influence there. It’s a start and hopefully a signal to Saudi women and needs to be celebrated as such but there is so much more to be done.  Because, as a friend of mine  says, until all of us are free none of us are free.

Stuff to think about…

What do you think ‘is it possible to ‘have it all’?

Do you think we have a responsibility to speak for women who face gender injustice? If you do, how do you go about doing that?

The post IS ‘HAVING IT ALL’ A LONG LOST DREAM? first appeared on Wendy Beech-Ward.

I’ve been musing on our conversation quite a bit since then. It’s obviously great that he likes me but that wasn’t what struck me. I was struck by his observation that many leaders were claiming to be something they are not.

This struck me for two reasons:

1. Since when did it become OK for Christians to claim to be something they are not?

2. Why do so many people focus inward on the church instead of outward to their communities?

When I became a Christian it’d be fair to say my family weren’t overly thrilled. My mum thought all Christians were hypocrites. She told me in no uncertain terms that she didn’t mind me being a Christian but ‘don’t you dare be a hypocrite…’ I knew that if she ever caught me saying I was something I wasn’t – I’d be in big trouble.

Tozer once said: ‘the church began in power, moved in power and moved as long as she had power. When she no longer had power she dug in for safety and sought to conserve her gains!’ Unfortunately, I think Tozer is right – too many of us are simply digging in for safety and trying to maintain what we’ve got; rather than working hard to see the Kingdom come.

Last year I went to the 15^th Anniversary celebration for an organisation that does amazing work with marginalised young people in London. About 400 people attended this celebration. On the other side of London 3,250 people had gathered for a worship event to pray for revival.

I have to confess that I did wonder what would happen if those 3,250 people joined the organisation I was with as volunteers. I wondered if they’d see revival come if they actually got involved instead of – just – attending conferences and events.

I think that a vibrant faith includes risk taking, adventure, sacrifice and the willingness to be the answer to your own prayers. You’d expect to me to say that I think that attending events and conferences are great things to do. But if they ever become a replacement for getting involved in our communities or churches we’ve got a massive problem.

A church leader friend of mine told me recently that he wants to see revival come to his town. While he and his church are waiting and praying for that to happen they are working to ‘revive’ their town. They run a free festival every summer; school breakfast clubs every day and a whole host of other community activities. They are being the answer to their own prayers… and their town is noticing the difference.

So come on let’s be what we supposed to be – look outward, get involved, take a few risks and see what God does with us.

Stuff to think about…

Why do you think that some Christians find it easier to be inward focused rather than outward focused?

Have you ever fallen into this way of thinking?

The post “DON’T YOU DARE BE A HYPOCRITE…” first appeared on Wendy Beech-Ward.

I’ve discovered that people who live in comfort sometimes say the dumbest things because their comfort robs them of their ability to care.

I absolutely hate the phrase ‘compassion fatigue’ and I always have. And today I hate it with more passion than I ever have. It seems to me that ‘compassion fatigue’ is a phrase which gets used by comfortable people who live in comfortable places with comfortable lives. Compassion fatigue is by definition a luxury.

Yesterday, I met a church leader who leads a church of 7,000 people. After talking to him for a while I about his amazing vision for his church I asked him: ‘what is your biggest personal challenge as a Christian in Haiti?’  His answer was: ‘my biggest challenge is that the need just keeps coming.  And the more need you meet the need the more it just keeps coming.’ Was he a candidate for compassion fatigue? Yes. Did he have compassion fatigue? Absolutely not, because he doesn’t have the luxury of that choice.

Today we’ve spent the day with the church we might be working with to fund a building so they can run a Child Survival Programme (CSP). We took Nellie the Compassion ‘big blue elephant’ to their school (we’ve discovered that most schools in Haiti are in churches). At the school we met 200 amazing, fun and happy children – we played with the elephant and some with balloons with them. The joy on their faces was priceless.

Later, we stopped to film some of the Bible readings we’ll be looking at Spring Harvest. Three young boys joined our team for an hour. Initially they were full of bravado as only teenagers can be. As they began to trust us they began to tell us their stories.

Each had lost their parents in the earthquake, each had nowhere to live, each of them had nobody who cared about them. So they stuck together – three boys with nothing and nobody so they look after each other because they know its the only way they’ll survive.

Someone once said that ‘your perspective  is shaped by what you see when you first open your curtains in the morning.’ I don’t know what you see when you open the curtains in the morning – I see a leafy street and the school opposite my house. I don’t see 600,000 people living in tents, I don’t see street children, I don’t see people scratching a living by selling stuff on the streets, I don’t see parents robbed of all their hopes and dreams, I don’t see children orphaned by an earthquake begging for food.  I don’t see any of that.

Compassion fatigue says that ‘the needs are so great, and the little I can do won’t make a difference so I won’t even try.’ It’s a lie, an excuse and a choice that only comfortable people can make. Nobody I’ve met in Haiti has that choice or even if they did would make that choice – not the Compassion team, not the church leaders and definitely not three young street boys with nobody and nothing who’ve chosen to help their friends.

So if these people can find a place in their hearts to reach out and help, why can’t we? Because choice is a luxury only the comfortable have.

Stuff to think about…

Do ever think ‘the needs are so great, and the little I can do won’t make a difference so I won’t even try’?

If you do, what can you do to shake it off?

What is the biggest personal challenge to you being a Christian and a leader?

The post CHOICE IS A LUXURY (HAITI #3) first appeared on Wendy Beech-Ward.

Welcome to Haiti read the sign at the airport. Once through customs and immigration we joined a bustling mass of people. It’d be easy to think that they were normal travellers but after listening to their conversations it turned out that pretty much everyone on the plane was here to see how they could help the Haitian people rebuild their country.  Realising that there is such a desire to help was inspiring.

As most of you reading this know, every year at Spring Harvest we take up an offering and give this money away to charities doing amazing work. In 2012 we’ve called our offering ‘No Ceiling to Hope’ and we’ve come to Haiti to find out if there is a church we can partner with to help them ‘demonstrate the love of God to the most needy in their community.’ Given all I saw yesterday I’m totally confident that we’ll find loads of people we can partner with.

We’re really grateful to our friends at Compassion for enabling me, Abby Guinness, Krish Kandiah, Bekah Legg and Damian Wharton to come here on behalf of the Spring Harvest community.  We’ve brought a film crew with us from OH TV to document our experiences – the people we meet, the places we visit and the impact the church is having – also with us are our friends Ian Hamilton and Steve Bunn from Compassion UK.

We arrived in Haiti yesterday and spent the day travelling and orientating ourselves to the people and the places we’re going to visit. And I have to say it was totally overwhelming (a word I think I’ll be using a lot this week). To be lifted out of your regular life and dropped into a place so different from your own life creates a weird sense of alternative reality. Almost every experience is different to what I see at home – instead of empty leafy streets I saw masses of people because in Haiti 85% of adults are unemployed, instead of houses I saw tents, instead of people living in comfort I saw people making the best of life under terrible conditions.  It was overwhelming.

We went out for food to a Chinese restaurant. We had a great time talking about our hopes and dreams for the trip.  I’m really passionate that the people we meet know that we don’t come with any other agenda than to serve them and what God is doing through them. I’m not even sure whether I want to use the phrase ‘help them’ – which of course we do but the phrase doesn’t sit well with me…

When we came out of the restaurant we faced what we hadn’t seen when we drove up – we saw the tent village. The picture at the top of this blog post is the photo I took of it.  Between us and them was a road – 18 feet separated us.  18 feet between our side where we eat great food and can keep asking for more just because we can and their side where they eat nothing or our leftovers. 18 feet isn’t much – yesterday it felt like an ocean.

For me personally I guess this trip is about finding out how we navigate all the roads we discover that feel like an oceans.  In doing that, I’m sure we’ll find our place in the bigger story of what God is doing in the world.

Stuff to think about…

Have you ever been in a situation where the road between you and others felt like an ocean?

If you have, what did you do to navigate it?

[P.s.  Compassion are helping us identify a church we can work with to fund them building some infrastructure to host a Child Survival Programme.  There is a real problem in Haiti with infant mortality basically lots of children aren’t surviving their early years and churches don’t have the buildings they need to run a programmes in. Of course we’ll be asking questions about how the money we give can be used most effectively, and, as always, we’ll do all the necessary checks on financial integrity.]

The post THE ROAD BETWEEN US (HAITI #2) first appeared on Wendy Beech-Ward.